FBI says Oregon bomb suspect originally wanted to blow himself up

Teresa Carson

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A Somali-born man charged in a Christmas-season bomb plot in Oregon was eager to "martyr" himself in a suicide mission, but FBI agents posing as al Qaeda operatives talked him into a plan to set off explosives remotely instead, one of them testified on Tuesday.

Returning to the witness stand on the second day of testimony in the trial of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, an undercover agent identified in court only by his pseudonym, Youssef, recounted offering the defendant a number of chances to back out of the plot.

But Mohamud's determination to forge ahead with a plan to bomb a crowded outdoor Christmas tree-lighting ceremony on November 26, 2010, in Portland never seemed to waver, Youssef testified.

The prosecution also played for the jury a brief videotaped message by Mohamud, recorded by his undercover FBI handlers about four weeks before the planned attack, in which he grimly states: "A dark day is coming your way."

Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former Oregon State University student who was 19 at the time, is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in an FBI sting operation criticized by defense lawyers as a blatant case of government entrapment.

If convicted, Mohamud, now 21, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

An FBI affidavit filed in the case says Mohamud was arrested after he tried to use a cellphone to detonate what he believed was a car bomb but was actually a harmless fake supplied by Youssef and a fellow FBI agent.

Youssef passed himself off as an al Qaeda recruiter, while his undercover FBI partner posed as an al Qaeda bomb expert named Hussein, according to testimony.

The fake bomb was planted in a van near a downtown square lined with shops and offices and crowded with thousands of people attending the holiday festivities, though authorities say the public was never in any real danger.

'YOUR PEOPLE WILL NOT REMAIN SAFE'

In opening statements as the trial got under way last week, defense attorney Stephen Sady argued that his client would never have tried to carry out a bombing on his own and that the FBI "created a crime that would have never happened without them."

But in FBI testimony and in secretly recorded video and audio tapes of his meetings with undercover agents, Mohamud was shown by the prosecution as an eager participant who originally wanted to "martyr" himself by driving a bomb-packed van into the outdoor plaza and blowing himself up with it.

Spectators and members of the media were ordered out of the courtroom and into a nearby chamber to watch the proceedings on closed-circuit television during testimony by Youssef, who remained off camera to protect his identity.

Under questioning by assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Knight, the agent said he and his colleague grew concerned at one point because they considered Mohamud to be "suicidal, and we don't want him to take matters into his own hands."

In a video clip of Mohamud and his FBI handlers sharing a meal in a hotel room, the two agents are heard convincing Mohamud that he could ultimately do more to help "the cause" by staying alive. "We want to keep you for awhile," Hussein says in the video. "We think there's some things you can do better than just one time."

They also discussed sending Mohamud off to a Muslim country after November 26 in a move Youssef testified was aimed at giving Mohamud something to look forward to beyond the planned bombing.

In a separate video the agents filmed of Mohamud in his Corvallis, Oregon, apartment on November 4, Mohamud stood before the camera wearing a camouflaged jacket over a white tunic, with a red-and-white checkered scarf wound atop his head to deliver a solemn goodbye message.

Speaking first in Arabic and then in English in a statement he addressed to the West he said: "A dark day is coming your way. ... Your people will not remain safe."

Addressing other Muslims residing among non-believers in the United States, he added: "Living here is a sin." To his parents, he declared, "Nothing you do will hold me back."

At another point, the agents showed Mohamud a purported Islamist militant training video, which actually was produced by the FBI, depicting men with scarf-covered faces shooting guns, and one setting off a bomb with a cellphone detonator. Youssef said Mohamud's response to the video was that "it was beautiful."